Critics question Scott administration school-grading method

TALLAHASSEE — The Scott administration’s plan to evaluate schools’ performance in 2014-15 without taking into consideration the year-to-year improvement of students is based on an esoteric provision in the state’s education accountability law that lawmakers and school district leaders say is being misused.

In 2013, the Legislature amended the state’s law that directs the Department of Education to grade schools annually on an A to F scale to clarify that grades should be issued only for schools that have more than 10 students taking state exams.